Reagan is now looking forward to her birthday and Christmas at home after making a remarkable recovery from a bout of liver disease

James, who is supporting The Sun’s Smiles at Christmas campaign, said: “One of the hardest things has been explaining the situation to Reagan’s sisters.

“One of the girls asked us if Reagan is going to die, and it was heartbreaking but we had to tell her she might – because if she does and we’ve lied to her, it would be awful.

“That was one of the hardest things we’ve had to do.”

Reagan’s tumours have been completely removed after a successful bout of high-dose chemo and an eight-hour surgery and she is now hoping to be home for Christmas before continuing treatment in January with 21 days of radiotherapy.

James says neuroblastoma has a much lower survival rate than leukaemia as much less research has been done into it

James explains the need for more research is so important to his family, as Reagan's form of neuroblastoma has such a high relapse rate and there is little doctors will be able to do if her tumours return.

He said: "She only has a 35 per cent chance of making it through, and if she does she has an 80 per cent chance of relapsing within five years.

"If she does relapse, there's a very limited amount doctors can do. There won't be any treatment for her again and we need that research so there can be more trials which may save Reagan's life.

"She's just one kid of many and all of us parents are desperate to get more funding for research, because these are our kids."

Speaking about Reagan's survival chances, he said: "Those stats are tiny compared to leukaemia, which has a high rate of survival because most of the research is put into it.

"We've met a lot of families whose children have rare tumours or a rare form of cancer, and it's heartbreaking because they're given such low survival chances because there's not enough research into it at the moment. There's not enough funding for the research."

The brave toddler continues to battle her disease and her parents are hoping she will be in remission next year

Reagan was due to leave hospital a couple of weeks ago but was diagnosed with VOD liver failure, a side effect of high-dose chemo, as she was due to be discharged.

James described VOD as "every parents worst nightmare" but says Reagan is fighting through.

He said: "Her kidneys are starting to function again, her liver is starting to function again.

"She's put on three kilos in fluid, which is a lot as she's only tiny, and it's putting a lot of pressure on her lungs and causing breathing problems.

"The fluid is causing so much damage to her insides and it's heartbreaking to see - but she's getting better every day."

Reagan is now hoping to be home for her birthday next week, but was initially told by doctors she would still be in the ward.

James took to Facebook to ask kind wellwishers to send cards to the toddler's ward so she could celebrate.

James said: "We've had to accept the situation, you're constantly thinking 'what can I do to change this?', but there's nothing you can do, so you accept it and think 'okay, so lets help her by being by her side'.

"You're still heartbroken, you'll forever be heartbroken, but somehow you deal with it and every day you can deal a little bit more."